Using alloys is confusing me

[chutestrate]

I'm very new to casting, and am looking for some direct clear answers. Not to sound angry, but I'm frustrated with not being able to understand how the hardening process works.

I've been to lasc.us site, and it is an interesting read, but I'm still left with the same questions. How do I harden or soften my lead?

I'm afraid the search feature has also left me with the same questions. Everyone's answers are above my understanding level at this point.
My situation:

I have about 100lbs. of range lead ordered from ebay. I've cast 10 lbs. into .40 cal. slugs with a Lee 6 cavity mold. I think I've got the basics of pouring, fluxing, and melting lead squared away. I haven't tested the lead for hardness yet because it seemed that some lead mixtures needed some time to fully harden.

I am going to test the hardness with my Lee tester. After I ballpark the hardness what do I do if I want to harden the alloy? I'm looking for wheel weights now. Do I mix ww with soft lead 1:1 or do I find the raw alloy elements to add to batches?

I have the Lee book, and the Lyman 47th edition. I'm not finding answers to my questions. Is this just something that I have to learn on my own?

thanks

[gunsablazin]

I'm just getting back into casting, so you will likely get better advice than mine. I mix range lead with wheel weights or linotype metal when I have it, about 20% to 70% range lead. I use my boolits for IDPA and practice/plinking and at modest pistol velocity the hardness of the lead makes little if any difference. I think at the velocities I shoot at pure lead with enough tin for good fillout would work fine. I don't mind a small amount of leading anyway, as long as it does not affect accuracy at the distances I shoot, 3-30yds.

[geargnasher]

Chutestrate, first, welcome to the forum! You've found the right place for good answers. Second, take a deep breath and relax! This is supposed to be fun, and casting for the .40 really isn't that difficult. Now if you'd started with a Swedish Mauser first, you might be in trouble.

You can probably shoot that range scrap "as-is" in your pistol, if it isn't hard enough for full-house loads (i.e. severe leading and flyers happen as you increase powder charge) then you can oven-heat treat those boolits or you can cast new ones and drop them into a bucket of water to quench them. In a week or two they will be much harder if there is any antimony in them.

What you're looking for is somewhere (in my opinion) 11-16 bhn for what you're doing. If that isn't hard enough, add clip-on wheel weights until it is. No matter what you do, it takes time for antimonial lead alloys to reach their final hardness, whether heat treating or air cooling.

As to how the hardening process works, here's the basics. Pure lead can't be hardened. Adding tin to pure lead in amounts up to seven percent or so will only get you a maximum bhn of 11, but heat-treating has no effect. Antimony, in amounts up to nearly 20 percent will harden lead naturally to over 20, even more if heat treated. Heat treating or water dropping causes the antimony to form a more crystalline structure (oversimplification) and make the lead alloy tougher and more brittle. A little antimony (3%) is plenty, and will water drop to somewhere around 16 -18bhn, but air cooled will only get you about 11-12. Antimony and tin form an intermetallic bond when both are present in lead alloy, creating different hardness, toughness, and heat-treatability depending upon the proportions. It can get complicated, especially with mystery scrap, but the general rule is just to check the hardness and go from there.

These numbers are approximate based upon my hardness tester, alloys, and experience, and your numbers may be a bit different, but the trends are the same. Most range scrap is pretty soft due to dilution from pure lead buckshot, pellets, . 22rimfire, and jacketed bullet cores, and can be anywhere from dead soft five bhn to 10 or more, just depends. Fortunately you have a tester, so check it and see. If those boolits turn out harder than 11 in a week or two, you're good to go!

If you want the full explanation of alloys and how they work, get a Lyman reloading manual or cast bullet manual, they both have an excellent section on lead alloys, and why exactly Hardball and Lyman #2 alloys came to be.

Gear

[sargenv]

I found that I needed to water quench my WW's to make them hard enough to shoot in 40 S&W. I initially tried some 92-6-2 thinned down to 94-4.5-1.5 and 96-3-1 air cooled and man did it lead up my barrel something fierce. I then switched to 50/50 92-6-2 and WW water quenched, and then just plain old WW + 2% tin and water quenched and now they come out to 18-20 on the BHN and do not lead at all. I size em to .401" and tumble lube with JPW and have loaded them to about 975 fps with no issues whatsoever. I am using either the Lee 175 TC or a ~185 gr LRN that I had Veral smith make just for me. I use the 175's in guns that need to be the SAAMI OAL of 1.135" and the LRN's for guns that can accomodate the longer 40 cal bullet like my S&W 610's and my P16-40 which is a widebody 1911 style gun. The latter two can handle me loading them to 1.260" OAL.

[chutestrate]

Thanks for the reply. I'm taking a lot of deep breaths, but it's still clear as mud. I've read the why's in the books, and it is interesting. I'm struggling with the how to's. I'm just gonna keep asking questions until I get it.

[chutestrate]

Ok, maybe we can use this as an example and it might help me to understand what I will need to do.

If I have pure soft lead and want to harden it, what do I do?

[kbstenberg]

Welcome Chutestrate to the boolit website.
Have you shot any of the bullits you have made? Did they lead your bore?
Did you slug the bore of your gun. What dia. are your bullits? More times than not leading can be traced to poor fit rather than how hard or soft.
You can progresivly make your lead harder. If the range lead you have leads the bore even after sizing the boolits corectly. You could make a small batch. (as an example) say 5lbs of your range lead an add 25% of a harder alloy (ww, lYNOTYPE). Make a few bullits, try them an see how they work. If your still getting some leading, useing what was left from your adjusted alloy add a little more of your known harder alloy an try again
Just my .02cents, but i don't care what the BHN is so long as what i have doesn't lead my guns
Other facters that can cause leading are
improper lubeing
driving the bullit too fast
impproper loading
Kevin

[garandsrus]

Chutestrate,

To harden pure lead, add tin and antimony. There are several options, in order of popularity:

o Add clip on WW, which have both compounds. You may want to add more tin also.
o Add type metal (linotype, monotype, foundrytype, etc) which have lead, antimony, and tin
o Add pure elements for both materials

To make a given alloy (such as linotype) softer, add pure lead.

There are several alloy calculators that you can find on the site that will give you more ideas.

John

[kbstenberg]

In the most simpalist terms all you have to do is heat the range lead you now have an add what ever harder lead you can find. Stirr it , fluxx, an cast your bullits
Kevin

[grumpy one]

There are two issues here that are possibly having separate effects. However they can be solved one at a time. The issues are getting the right alloy hardness, and getting the right bullet fit in the barrel. Unless you are dealing with magnum handgun loads or rifle loads, the latter is more often the cause of leading than the former.

So far as alloying is concerned, it is fairly simple unless you want to get into the theory, which can be complicated. Let's pretend for a minute that you are shooting 38 Special from a revolver. About 11 BHN bullet hardness is likely to be best, because it is hard enough to handle without bullet damage, and more than hard enough for the rather modest breech pressure involved. Now think about 45 ACP. 11 BHN is hard enough for the breech pressure, but depending on your feed ramp, you might want more hardness to ensure reliable feeding. Your 40 S&W has higher pressure than these rounds, but is not into the magnum category. People tell me that 18 BHN is good in many magnum loads, so you may find your best hardness level somewhere between 11 and 18 BHN. On the other hand your particular pistol might surprise you; you have to try it to see.

There are two ways to adjust your bullet hardness: alloy composition, and heat treatment. Consider straight wheelweight alloy. I find that as-cast (no heat treatment) it is 11 BHN after 2 weeks, increasing slowly to 15 BHN after one year. An alloy with 1% tin and 4% antimony is 15 BHN after only 3 months, because of its higher antimony.

To give you an idea of the effect of heat treating these alloys, an alloy with 1% tin and 2% antimony, 2 weeks after casting, is 10 BHN as cast, but with severe heat treatment is 25 BHN at 2 weeks. Any intermediate hardness between 10 and 25 BHN can be achieved with more moderate heat treatment. An alloy with 2% tin and 4% antimony is 12 BHN as cast, but with maximum heat treatment is 28 BHN after 2 weeks. Increasing the extent of alloying beyond this level increases as-cast hardness, but in my experiments it does not increase maximum heat-treated hardness. 2% tin, 5% antimony is 16 BHN as cast but would only heat-treat to 24 BHN. 8% tin, 7% antimony is 18 BHN as cast, but would only heat-treat to 22 BHN. 7% tin, 15% antimony is 20 BHN as cast, but would only heat treat to 26 BHN. Obviously there is some strange variation going on in the hardness of the maximum heat treatment samples I have quoted, but it is not important for current purposes.

The general rule is that increasing antimony content increases your as-cast hardness, and increasing tin content up to 2% increases ease of casting. Further increases in tin content, up to the point where it equals the antimony content, have diminishing effects on castability, but improve bullet toughness (resistance to deformation or fracture).

Getting back to your actual question, if you want a way to produce an as-cast hardness anywhere between 11 and 18 BHN (because your optimum will be somewhere in that range), you will probably be about 10 to 11 with your range lead. To get to 18 as-cast you would need pure linotype (the linotype you can buy is usually alloy-depleted due to being held too long in a molten state, and is only 18 BHN in my tests. New linotype is 22 BHN as-cast.) You can mix range lead and linotype to get any hardness you want between 10 and 18 BHN. Note that the fairly common 2/6 alloy (Taracorp Magnum alloy, commonly used by commercial bullet casters) is close to 17 BHN as cast and may be cheaper than linotype (though not quite as easy to cast).

So, if you get a supply of linotype or 2/6 and mix it in varying proportions with your range lead, you should be able to make an air-cooled alloy that suits your pistol.

[fryboy]

if u want to make pure lead ( and i do mean pure 100% ) trade it to a muzzle loadin guy for harder !!! next option starts to cost more money ... as stated adding tin will add a bit of hardness ,the 44 mag was birthed on 16 # lead to 1 # tin ,not very hard by today's standards but adequate,should also suffice for ur 40 ...... better would be adding antimony or lino , or just buy straight lino and run it , roto metals sells most the general alloys as well as 30% antimonial lead to help make it easier ,i'd cast what u have and check it for hardness today and next week ( and the week after ) i'd also do it with dropping the hot castings in a bucket of water and the same hardness testing regime ...thaz the only way ur gonna know what u have , soft alloys will work IF properly sized and loaded to the correct velocity ,properly lubed also helps but sometimes amigo ya just gotta jump in to know how cold the water is .... with cast boolits i surely wouldnt try to wring top jacketed velocities from but that part is up to u [shrugz]

[chutestrate]

Grumpy One...

Thank you. I actually followed some of that. I can be dense at time. I guess now I have to learn about heat treating. I have no idea about what that is all about.

I guess my homework is to learn about heat treating, test the slugs I have cast for hardness, and shoot some of them.

I am loading for 10mm and .40 s&w at the moment with plans for 38, 357, 44 spl, and 44 mag in the future.

[waksupi]

I found that I needed to water quench my WW's to make them hard enough to shoot in 40 S&W. I initially tried some 92-6-2 thinned down to 94-4.5-1.5 and 96-3-1 air cooled and man did it lead up my barrel something fierce. I then switched to 50/50 92-6-2 and WW water quenched, and then just plain old WW + 2% tin and water quenched and now they come out to 18-20 on the BHN and do not lead at all. I size em to .401" and tumble lube with JPW and have loaded them to about 975 fps with no issues whatsoever. I am using either the Lee 175 TC or a ~185 gr LRN that I had Veral smith make just for me. I use the 175's in guns that need to be the SAAMI OAL of 1.135" and the LRN's for guns that can accomodate the longer 40 cal bullet like my S&W 610's and my P16-40 which is a widebody 1911 style gun. The latter two can handle me loading them to 1.260" OAL.

Sarge, when I see something like this, it is telling me the bullets may not need to be that hard, but should probably be a thousandth or so larger.

[MtGun44]

The big point that seems to be missed SO often is that you FIRST need to fit the boolit to
the barrel.

Second - HARDNESS is NOT the solution to leading by itself. New casters -
Please read that one more time and try to unlearn all the baloney that it out there about
needing some particular hardness for some particular application. I know that
"the pros" who are selling you cast boolits commercially keep telling you that you
can measure the wonderfulness of their product by the hardness. This is just
a combination of marketing BS and ignorance.

Once you reach the level of air cooled wheel weights you are hard enough to
shoot accurately and not lead in any pistol, including .44 Mag and .357 Mag, IF THE
BOOLIT FITS PROPERLY, IS A GOOD DESIGN AND HAS GOOD & ADEQUATE LUBE.

A super hard boolit that is undersized can and will lead like crazy. One more time -
hardness does not solve leading by itself! In many cases softer will lead less than
hard.

I have not worked with the super magnums like .454 Casull that work at rifle pressures, so
this may not be the whole story for those calibers.

"Fit is King" (a bow in Bret's direction) is the key point. You want your boolits to be
at least .001 to .002 larger than the groove diameter of a semiauto. The next issue is
boolit design, lube quality and quantity. Hardness may increase accuracy for some
guns with shallow rifling or other oddities, or at extreme velocities, but hardness
is not a primary issue of concern for ordinary pistol ammo once you are at air cooled
wheelweights hardness.

Bill

[Huntermb]

Thank you all for this thread. I'm new to the casting game too (well at least to alloys etc I used to make round ball for my muzzleloader but that was straight lead). I was confused on the whole alloy hardness thing too. I guess it is one of those trial and error things as well.
What is the general recommendation for hardness for a hunting rifle round in say 303 british or 308 or 30-30 or does that really matter as much as the choice of the bullet style. Hope I didn't hijack the thread.

[fryboy]

quenched ww suffices for alot of things ! unquenched if u want a lil more expansion ...

[gefiltephish]

Hopefully the attached file shows up. It's an alloy calculator in xls format. From what I've read, the BHN estimates are not entirely accurate, but should get you in the ballpark for initial testing. If nothing else, it's great for figuring out weights and percentages etc. Have fun!

BTW, I can't take any credit at all for writing the file, I don't even remember where I got it.

[Suo Gan]

The big point that seems to be missed SO often is that you FIRST need to fit the boolit to
the barrel.

Second - HARDNESS is NOT the solution to leading by itself. New casters -
Please read that one more time and try to unlearn all the baloney that it out there about
needing some particular hardness for some particular application. I know that
"the pros" who are selling you cast boolits commercially keep telling you that you
can measure the wonderfulness of their product by the hardness. This is just
a combination of marketing BS and ignorance.

Once you reach the level of air cooled wheel weights you are hard enough to
shoot accurately and not lead in any pistol, including .44 Mag and .357 Mag, IF THE
BOOLIT FITS PROPERLY, IS A GOOD DESIGN AND HAS GOOD & ADEQUATE LUBE.

A super hard boolit that is undersized can and will lead like crazy. One more time -
hardness does not solve leading by itself! In many cases softer will lead less than
hard.

I have not worked with the super magnums like .454 Casull that work at rifle pressures, so
this may not be the whole story for those calibers.

"Fit is King" (a bow in Bret's direction) is the key point. You want your boolits to be
at least .001 to .002 larger than the groove diameter of a semiauto. The next issue is
boolit design, lube quality and quantity. Hardness may increase accuracy for some
guns with shallow rifling or other oddities, or at extreme velocities, but hardness
is not a primary issue of concern for ordinary pistol ammo once you are at air cooled
wheelweights hardness.

Bill

Read what Bill said again!

Don't worry about all the jargon, weights, percentages, temperatures, gravity, hardness, mold materials etc. at this stage in the game. Right now try to get your mind wrapped around boolit fit, and boolit lube. Just keep your melt hot, your mold hot, and practice!! Most things involved with casting are intuitive if you sit down and think about what is going on. I recommend buying "Beartooth Bullets Technical Manual" the whole process is described in a linear fashion. Then buy the Lyman manual for the loads.

[fryboy]

Hopefully the attached file shows up. It's an alloy calculator in xls format. From what I've read, the BHN estimates are not entirely accurate, but should get you in the ballpark for initial testing. If nothing else, it's great for figuring out weights and percentages etc. Have fun!

BTW, I can't take any credit at all for writing the file, I don't even remember where I got it.

i've had the same caculator for a bit but i could never get it to work for me ( quatro pro or quatro 12 is what opens it on my puter, everything else i tried wouldnt ) it wouldnt let me change the fields i needed too ????

[11B-101ABN]

Where does a person go to purchase the "Beartooth Bullets Technical Manual" ?